


I Was A Ghost (Hunted And Fled)

by skyline



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alcoholism, Hunger Games AU, M/M, Steve is just really old Katniss, Tony is like really young Haymitch okay I'm sorry, angst angst this is all about angst, face smushing, text fic, this comparison is not working I'll shut up now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 05:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10869921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyline/pseuds/skyline
Summary: Everyone knows who Tony Stark is, Victor and son of a Victor, perpetually drunk and miserable besides.





	I Was A Ghost (Hunted And Fled)

Everyone knows who Tony Stark is, Victor and son of a Victor, perpetually drunk and miserable besides. And now everyone will know Steve Rogers too, the first volunteer from District Twelve in years.

He's a poor, sickly kid with coal dust staining the hollows of his eyes, and Tony _hates_ his mobility, his strong, confident stride. He watches it replay again and again, and remembers how it felt to stand up on that stage in his fine, fine clothes, waiting for no one to speak his name.

Barnes doesn't know how damn lucky he is.

To have Steve. To lose Steve.

Barnes is a bastard. An ungrateful wretch. He grew up cherished and loved in a district where affection is hard to spare.

And even as the train loops tree-lined curves, pine needles sweeping the glass, ushering Rogers unto _death_ , Bucky Barnes will always have that whole lifetime’s worth of memories to keep him warm at night.

Tony, though.

Tony's only ever had Steve, the first person outside the Capitol to pay him any mind since his dad died.

Steve never wanted any of the things the Capitol's kind were after. Not a brush with fame or in Tony’s pants. The only thing the kid’s ever wanted is to be kind.

He’s too fucking kind.

Tony thought it even then, once upon a time, when he was near passed out by the old entrance to the mines. He liked it there, watching the sky from the dirt, and the filth. It was the one place that always reminded him how even if President Von Doom called him a hero on live TV, the words meant nothing. He couldn't save anyone when that mine collapsed.

He heard the screams echoing so far below, and he couldn't do a damn thing.

So he’d go there to drink, and to wallow, and that’s how Steve found him. Tony drunk and slurring, _so much for being a Victor_ , but tiny Steve Rogers foisted Tony up anyway.

Two years back now, Steve dragged Tony home, nearly tripping over the crude robots he learned to make from his dad, who learned from a kid from District Three some odd decades ago. A kid Howard would go on to kill with a blood-soaked smile.

But people expected that barbarity from Howard Stark, and probably Tony too. No one had been surprised when he won the games, and no one worried before or after.

Except Steve.

After that night he was a thorn on Tony's side, persistently nagging him - _eat, eat, eat, no grain liquor is not a food group Stark, I brought venison_ \- to _sleep_ , to _take care of yourself Tony, be a role model, be good_.

And now Steve won't ever say it again, _can't_ , because he's going into the arena and nobody believes he's coming out.

“Stop looking at me like that,” he snaps, glaring up at Tony with the type of vitriol only generated by fear, uncertainty and too much pride. “I'm not going to die.”

Tony swigs back an unmarked bottle of his favorite.

Pepper brought is straight from the Capitol, tucked into her remarkably tame purse right before she delivered Steve's death sentence in front of everyone in Twelve. He's never hated her for her job, never resented the kindness she showed him when so few others have, but in that moment Tony wanted to shove her ostentatious head under a breaking bottle.

“I'm not going to die,” Steve repeats.

Tony takes it back - no one believes Steve is going to live other than _Steve_ , stubborn, beautiful, idiotic Steve, who belongs outside Twelve's electric fences with wood smoke and sun-dappled foliage and freedom stretching every which way, not on this train full of mahogany.

“I believe you,” Tony lies, and Steve doesn't even do him the courtesy of believing him back.

Sharon, the other tribute, has sat quietly all this time, all flaxen curls and ribbons in her hair, but she rolls her eyes at Tony and says, “Bullshit,” because of course the day Tony loses everything is also Panem's National state the fucking obvious day.

Glowering, he tells her, “Now you, you might live.”

“Thanks,” she says, unconcerned. “I plan to.”

“I don't think he meant it as a compliment,” Steve says, and he's doing that squinty, frowny thing he does to Tony more than anyone else, probably, and Tony doesn't care.

He memorizes every line and curve of Steve's face, drinking it in deeper than bath water whiskey.

Under the table, Steve grasps Tony's hand. His long, thin fingers squeeze tight.

Tony squeezes back.

His mind is racing, trying to find a way out. But there isn't one - the Capitol designed it that way - and all he can see in the future is grave dirt, the shimmer of Steve’s face on a hologram in midair.

Sharon says, “Careful old man, you look like you're about to have a corollary.”

Tony wants to reply that he's only twenty three, only four years older than them, but he’s not that cruel. Not when one of them will never see the right side of their next naming day.

He holds his tongue, and the train rumbles and groans, swiftly cutting through the late hours.

The faster they go, the more the train’s engine occupies Tony's thoughts. He can see the mechanical schematics in his mind's eye, but he'll never figure out what goes on in men's heads. He’ll never figure out why any of this is happening.

Across the table, Steve is quiet and sullen. Likely thinking brave things. It’s very _Steve_ of him.

Then Sharon finally, hesitantly retreats to her bed.

That's when Tony gives up on pretending to enjoy all this misery.

He stands, and then he gracelessly falls to his knees, because wow the ground is moving, and it definitely isn't just because they're on a train.

"Tony," Steve says tiredly.

He reaches out to help, but Tony is already scooting forward, head in Steve's lap, arms wrapped around his waist. "Run away with me."

He can taste Steve's minute smile in the air, like an electric charge. "I can't do that."

"I know," Tony says, and he nuzzles Steve's thigh, overpowered by the scent of him, his hands curling into Tony's hair, his heat palpable through his homespun pants.

Tony tries to get closer.

He's tired and drunk and that's not fair to Steve - some small, distantly aware part of himself knows it's not fair to Steve - but the hum of the train is lulling him into blackout sleep, the best kind, where he doesn't have to think.

"I want to save you," Tony tells him, a mumble against rough cloth. "I don't know how to save you."

"It's okay," Steve rubs his fingers against Tony's scalp. "You don't have to be a hero anymore."

"Would for you," Tony grunts. "Anything for you."

He falls asleep, then, and when he wakes up squinting against the bright light of dawn, Steve is gone. There's a thin blanket wrapped tight around Tony's shoulders, and Pepper is looming.

Her terrifyingly high heels make Tony dizzy, but the line of her calves nice to look at all the same.

"You're a disgrace," she chides, only it's Pepper, so it sounds kinder than most people are when they point and call him a Victor.

"Where's Steve? And Sharon?"

"We're approaching the Capitol. They're up front. I assume they wanted to see." She hesitates and then says, "You're handling this worse than the last ones."

The last ones were a twelve year old boy named Peter who barely survived the cornucopia, and an older girl, Maya. She made it to the second day.

Lucky her.

"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm the epitome of optimism and good cheer."

He stands on wobbly legs. Then he belches in her face.

Pepper, to her credit, doesn't waver.

She's got steel in her bones, this one. Tony's always admired the way she handles him, gentle and competent, even though, in private, he's got all the charm of a rabid dog.

But he's got to turn that off, now.

He's got to be the man his father raised him to be, Tony Stark, District Twelve's worst kept secret hot mess, who can shove all the mess aside for the Capitol piranhas. Who can paste a sociopathic smile on his face, because he knows exactly what it takes to survive.

Only he doesn't know how to make Steve survive, so what use is he, even?

“Are you ready?” Pepper asks, in a tone that indicates she knows he isn’t.

Tony takes a deep breath. “I need a drink before we go.”

The day trickles into evening, and Tony can’t get drunk fast enough. He has to watch while Sharon and Steve are paraded in front of aestheticians, stylists, sponsors, and the rest of fucking Panem with dazzling speed. And this is only the beginning. The interviews, the shows of intimidation.

This is the gauntlet before the games.

Tony vomits in his own mouth twice. He swallows it down, washes it back with moonshine and a grimace that barely passes as a smile. He’s got to muster up some courage.

He’s got to keep it together, in case Steve glances his way.

He doesn’t, until that evening. He stands at the foot of Tony’s bed, ethereal in the moonlight. Pale and malnourished, yes, but still magical, somehow.

Like he has yet to learn all the terrible things the world has in store for him.

But of course, he does. Steve’s too smart to delude himself.

 “Tony,” he says, barely a whisper.

Tony holds out his arms. He can’t say anything. If he tries, his voice will break. He will shatter, and he’ll be even less useful than he is now.

 _I’m scared_ , Steve does not say, because he’s tough as nails, this district kid, just past legal and already condemned to die.

No different than any of them, really – not Sharon, or Tony way back when, or his own father, a legacy. They’re all fucked, or fucked up, and who knows why some of them get to keep on breathing?

Tony tightens his embrace. They’re so close that he feels it when Steve lets go, when all the tension and grief drains from his bones. Steve buries his head in Tony’s collarbone, and he does not cry or scream or yell. He trembles. He shakes. He shivers, and relies on Tony to keep him from quaking out of his skin.

It’s a minute or less. A single moment of weakness, and then Steve is Prince Valiant again.

He peers up at Tony. His eyes are frighteningly, breathtakingly blue. A man could lose himself in there.

Tony does.

Outside, the Capitol is a smudge in the darkness, all the bright lights blurring together. The only real thing in this world is Steve, the angles of his cheekbones, the curve of his lips. _Those eyes_.

“I’m not going to die,” Steve reiterates, this constant mantra, squeezing Tony so hard his spine cracks.

“Sure. Yeah.” Tony can’t find it in himself to lie again. Lips against Steve’s hair, he murmurs, “I wish-“

He doesn’t often deal with wishes.

His words fail him.

Steve turns his face into the arc of Tony’s neck. Gently, he prompts, “You wish?”

“I wish you’d waited one more year. I could have- there’s this serum that I’m working on…” He stops.

It wouldn’t have been enough. The problem is not that Steve lacks super strength. It’s that he’s _Steve_. Stupid, smart, _compassionate_ , wonderful Steve, who should have left Tony at the top of that mine shaft, to wither into nothing.  

“Would another year have helped?” Steve asks seriously, and he is not asking about the serum. “Would it have been enough?”

“Damn you,” Tony grits out, his throat congested with all the sorrow he can’t voice. “It’ll never be enough.”

He kisses Steve then, salty and wet.

He kisses him hard. He kisses him deep. He kisses Steve like this is the last thing they’ll ever share, and Steve kisses him back just the same.

It’s the night before everything ends, but here, in this room, Tony grips Steve’s hips and begins something new.

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes I text my friends fic. It's always unrefined and unedited, so...uh, apologies for that. I tried to put it in some kind of order, but this one insisted on being the land of run on sentences and man pain, apparently. 
> 
> But! History: I started texting this a while back to breila-rose (who consistently puts up with my AUs) got bored with texting long rambling nothingness, forgot about it, and now I'm suddenly on a Hunger Games kick again and decided to finish it off. Tada.


End file.
